New York Comic Con 2012:
Armchair Coverage Round-Up

NoisyDvL5

Masters of the Universe

I wasn’t expecting too much out of this convention… except for Masters of the Universe. It’s starting to falter, as all great lines do, but it’s still one of my favorites. The first day in the booth (via ToyArk) recapped what we had seen at SDCC & PowerCon and got us ready for Saturday’s Panel (via AFI). We got some slick reveals in the form of Clamp Champ & New Adventures He-Man (via ToyArk). Both of these guys look fantastic! Clamp Champ’s got a great head sculpt, some sweet new armor, and that… pincer thing. We’ll I’m not too impressed by the pincer thing, but it is what it is, the staction weapon helps make up for it! NA He-Man is well done and a figure I was strangely excited for – the wrist articulation so he can hold the sword aloft is cool even if it’s because he’s re-using Bow’s forearms. For video of the panel, look to none other than Pixel Dan!

The big prize was the details on Castle Grayskull (via ToyArk) though. While a prototype can’t be approved until a certain number of pre-orders is achieved, it looks like it could be one of the best playsets ever. First, it’s massive – over 2 ft wide, tall, & deep- and second it looks like it will be packed full of features. $250 is steep, but I think this playset will do the two things it needs to do – look great with the Classics and outclass the previous two playsets. The pre-order will be live on Tuesday at Mattycollector. Hey Matty, what’s up with the tiny thumbnails??? You want to sell it or not?

One concern is that the site says the pre-order window is open until the end of the year, but Toy Guru is saying that an assessment will be made in early November (the 10th, I think) about the viability of the pre-order, so we all might consider that the date we need to pre-order by. And, of course, with the possibility of this great playset will come some ridiculous gnashing of teeth and general collector vs collector stupidity. Hopefully, we can all weather this together and come out with a huge castle on the other side.

In other MOTU/Mattel news, there are images from the MOTU Art Show (via AFI), Bios for Ram Man & Netossa (via Fwoosh), and the usual last day sneak peek accessory (via TNI), this time an all-white Horde Crossbow. I’m not sure what that signals, but some are hoping for a Filmation Hordak. That’s not high on my list (I’d rather have Calix), but it’ll be an interesting wait until Toy Fair all the same.

Finally, the Icon Heroes Castle Grayskull was also on display. I’m hoping the Mattel pre-order doesn’t hurt the performance of this item too much because Icon Heroes did an amazing job on it. Check out pics at ToyArk & AFP.

Star Wars

Like our favorite comic-related toy lines, there didn’t seem to be much Star Wars news either. A few cool things were shown: Tamashii Nations Droids, some Kotobukiya items, and Hallmark Ornaments.

The bigger news seemed to be Star Wars and it’s epic, long awaited, much demanded, crossover with… Angry Birds? Toy Ark has Booth Images & Official Images for your viewing pleasure. Who’s excited?

TMNT

Ninja Turtles news was dominated by one word: Lego. The turtles were in attendance (via ToyArk) for the reveal and both ToyArk & AFI have some booth pictures. Heck, ToyArk went back for more! Between the Kre-Os and Lego announcements like this one, block figures could really be drain on collector’s finances next year.

Transformers

We got our first look at a few new Transformers at NYCC. I should’ve had Vault do a quick write-up on the Prime reveals because I’m a little bit out of my element on the new show. From what I can tell, things are going to get a little beast-y in the upcoming season and the toy line will follow suit. TFW2005 has some great panel images as well as PR images of the Beast Hunters and the new Platinum Collection which includes a swanky redo of the Energon Omega Supreme with a more classic color scheme and a new head.

Also on hand for the show, were two Club Exclusive figures: Jackpot & Breakdown. Vault missed the sign-up window for these, but I think he intends to track down a couple in the aftermarket, but I’m not sure which (other than Slipstream of course).

Miscellaneous Links

As usual, Diamond has a big presence at NYCC. AFi grabbed this gallery of their Distribution side and the DST Booth. I haven’t had a chance to look through them all yet but general booth images can also be found at AFP & CTR while ToyArk has specific galleries for Walking Dead &
Minimates.

Play Arts Kai also got a lot of picture love with a general galleries from AFP & ToyArk and specific galleries featuring Metal Gear Solid & Mass Effect from ToyArk as well.

We’ve seen lots of specific properties from Kotobukiya in the links above, but here are two general galleries from ToyArk & CTR.

More Hallmark pics from TNI & CTR.

My Little Pony Gallery from ToyArk.

S.H. Figurarts/MonstersArts got a few specific property galleries including this Dragonball Z gallery via ToyArk and this Power Rangers gallery via TNI. More exciting to me was the S.H. MonsterArts King Kong though.

Quick hits: Gundam (via ToyArk), Kidrobot (via CTR), Lego Hobbit (via TNI), Mezco (via AFP), Super7 (via CTR), TriForce (via ToyArk), Voltron (via ToyArk).

Alrighty, I think I’m going to wrap up there for this Armchair Coverage! If you didn’t see it listed here. I’d check the Figures.Com Gallery as it seems the most extensive so far. ActionFigureInsider is also putting together a nice selection of galleries after the show. MWCToys should have a nice set of galleries up soon and Doomkick.com is promising some coverage this week as well.

Special Thanks to all the sites from which this coverage is pulled: ActionFigureInsider, ActionFigurePics, Battlegrip, Cool Toy Review, DaytimeNinja, Doomkick, Figures.com, The Fwoosh, Hisstank, MWCToys, Onell Design, October Toys, Pixel-Dan, PoeGhostal, TFW2005, ToyArk!

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37 thoughts on “New York Comic Con 2012:
Armchair Coverage Round-Up”

    1. what exactly do you mean by “outclass the previous two playsets?” you mean just the grayskull castles, right? which i have to say, bigger isn’t always better. not that i’m dissing this new castle but as a comparison, the 200x castle had the battle station add ons which not only gave you more accessories, but expanded the castle in a basically limitless way (and allowed you to have a four sided castle if you wished) the original castle, as of the current listing of stuff, still came w/ more pack-ins… and it was first. that’s a tough thing to overcome for any new set. motuc has done some killer reinterpretations of fan favorite older characters (thinking directly of fisto) but they’ve also crapped out on more than a few (thinking of stratos… and making the exasperated lurch growl)… so while i have hopes for this new set, even w/ blueprints, i wouldn’t call them high hopes (my hopes are drug free dammit!)

      not to mention, masters as a franchise set the bar retardedly high on playsets. snake mountain was the first karaoke set on the market, the fright zone was cool, slime was at it’s peak in the pit, and eternia had an amtrak for joe biden to ride to work… pretty epic track record. and of course, that forgets the NA playsets, which were huge and cool as well. starship eternia was “the defiant” of motu! and nordor is without challenge the top of the heap for “drome” playsets!

      1. You drive me crazy sometimes, but this freaking epic:

        “eternia had an amtrak for joe biden to ride to work”

        Well done!

        1. thanks ero. i always appreciate being the fly in the ointment for some folks, especially when i can make them laugh enough to keep reading anyways. 😉

      2. You know, the 200x Castle Grayskull sounds insanely epic, and I have NO MEMORY WHATSOEVER of seeing ANY of that in a store!!!

        Figures? Sure. I even bought He-Man and Skeletor. I recall seeing TONS of Ice Armor He-Man clogging zip-strips pegged on an endcap at K-Mart for, like, forever. I bought a Skeletor ‘rant staff’ for my late friend who was just a HUGE Skeletor fan/collector. So I was ‘active’ during the time.

        Never, ever saw Grayskull 200x.

        so, was it a limited distro item or something? Just a regional release? Something only Service Merchandise carried? Or was I shockingly, surprisingly blind?

        1. i do not recall any ‘battle station add ons’ for the 200x castle… but you’re talking a decade ago, so to be honest I can’t remember. i don’t recall seeing it in stores either though. the only reason i know for a fact that it was in stores is because i got one for a steal at kay bee toys.

          to be honest i wasn’t that impressed with the 200x grayskull though.

          1. pics here, for those unfamiliar: http://www.he-man.org/forums/boards/showthread.php?166178-Pic-Request-Battle-Station-loose

            the castle was widely distributed, but not as well publicized as the vintage castle. but i’ve heard tale of folks who snagged a couple at the time, as they found them (the castle and the battle station) in discount bins at various locales. i myself never saw the battle stations, but i saw a ton of the castles in my day, my TRU was aglut w/ them. i mostly avoided the millenium toys, so i didn’t pull the trigger personally, but i thought about it. had i known about the battle stations at the time, i’d likely have upgraded. while that castle lacked some of appeal of the vintage one, the voice chip was a cool idea (though not made nearly as useful as it could have been), and the battle station add on gave you more cannons and extra walls and shiz making it a more complete environment w/ a cubic assload of display space for the masters of ones choice.

          1. Okay, thanks for that reassurance that it’s not my computer or broadband that’s at fault! I’ll just check back later when things’ve settled down, I guess.

    1. It seems that Mattel just announced Castle Grayskull massive playset for pre-order ($250) along with the NYCC exclusives… If they don’t reach a minimum the won’t do it as many other subs or DC items like Superboy and Martian Girl

  7. Im loving the grayskull so far. Tho im still pessimistic about it going through.
    On a side note, tamashi nations brought with them 12 ghidorhs to sell, all 12 AND the display case one sold out thursday night. Was pretty upset about that friday morning

  8. DC:
    Red Hood – NEVER seen this look before and am annoyed it’s in the sub. I bet many wouldn’t have minded Jason in the black jacket look, either with the domino mask or “Cobra commander”-esque helmet, or both heads,like Thom/Starman. It would be an Easy re-use of the Mr.Terrific buck, at least.

    Huntress – still too early to tell whether the unpainted prototype is TJ/JLA full body or Jim Lee Hush with open belly, but people are leaning towards Hush, unfortunately. (already got the paint brush ready!)

    ML White Phoenix – I’m hearing people were told it was JEAN as Phoenix, not Hope (guessing from AVX #12/finale??).

    MOTU:
    NAHM – meh. never really watched the show and only saw the figures at on store, hanging around for MONTHS. What I thought was funny was that apparently his arm fell off and they stuck it back on with blutack? LOL
    pics: http://he-man.org/news_article.php?id=2956

    Champ clamp – Another unknown for me. Fisto as a black man with pincers? except he actually still has both hands? um, ok?

    Castle – looks to be almost worth the $250, going by the blueprints on the Org link I shared. (reg.retail = $100-150 range, definitely) One thing I keep questioning is the “perch for Wind Raider”? I recall something about a perch with the Talon fighter for the Castle back in the day, but there was no evidence for the perch in those blueprints. I’m guessing another stand for the massive winged boat that attaches to the turret??
    (I’d still be all over an updated Sky Sled, tho!)

    TF:
    slowly losing interest in the line, but I did find the new (Prime?) Rumble (car) and…green dude…Kup? at WAMO WM Saturday. Looks to be packed out with 2x Vehicon and …ffff…can’t remember who else was “new” on the pegs, but it was already released in another case? I was tempted to get Rumble, as he does come with cannons that resemble his G1 cartoon pile drivers.

    1. oh yeah, what’s up with the nu52 WW and Hawkman? are they All-Stars or DC sub? I saw the All-Stars and Ivy sold out in the first hour. too bad, I wanted Prime and KC Robin. (not going to happen right now, but soon…!)

      that animated Bane looks pretty cool, but the first two waves of that are clogging up the pegs, here. I lucked across Freeze and Two-Face in Louisville two months ago and glad I grabbed them there! (Forget about completing the DKRises set, too!)

      and looking at AFI’s gallery:
      Courtroom Ray is the final mystery figure? cool. but who’s the ghost, Scolari?
      Still wish we could’ve gotten a Janine, at the very least. or RGB squad.
      (Luckily, I bought an extra set of the gang for that and have an extra ML Rachel for Janine, as based off one of the other sites you link to for Q&A. Critical Mess?)

      BTTF Hoverboard = laughable. I’d be demanding my money back if I had a pre-order. Not even worth it for the obviously upcoming breakage complaints!

      that GI Joe Kre-O stuff looks awesome. why didn’t they make more vehicles and bases with Lego before this? LOL Now I want a new (hydro-/refinery/whatever it’s called) base like that for the 4″ line!
      (and WA Target just got a new case of movie figures in this past week, too!)

    2. It’s quite obviously Jean as White Phoenix (from Phoenix Endsong), not Hope. It’s built on the same body as the previous Phoenix figures from Toy Biz, and it uses a retooled Jim Lee Jean Grey head (no “face frame”) for the head. Rumors are it’ll be a running change variant to the Jim Lee Jean Grey (with the inexplicably flesh-colored hands. 90s Jean’s suit had gloves).

      1. XTAS cartoon version had flesh hands, comic depended on colorist on whether she had gloves or not.

  9. I’m still wondering when those Vampire ladies are coming out from the 4H. Last I heard is they were shopping for a factory that’ll make them at a reasonable cost, but that was months ago.

  10. Personally, I love the DC Bombshells statues. They are great looking. I’ll probably pick up the series of Superman statues too.

  11. I like how the superman statues still have the red briefs.

    The reveals liked all just that Red Hood no want. Clamo Champ after seeing the mini, yeah I’ll probably get but he’s gonna be living with guilt in verse (or have Teela kill him)

    NA Heman, never saw the toon or owned the toys so can’t say much, the design is nice and the new wrist, gotta see a new Adam with it.

  12. A few nice reveals for DCU, but with all the custom red hood figures using Mr Terrific as the base and all his exposure in the new 52 and in a recent animated series, I am shocked they went with a costume that has only been in a few issues (Batman Inc right?). Interchangeable masked/unmasked heads on Mr Terrific/Animal Man buck seemed like a no brainer. Nice to see Huntress finally, but it looks like the Jim lee Hush design which was not my favorite (the exposed belly and short shorts makes no sense for a crimefighter but all the sense for Jim Lee when it comes to his design choices), but a black brush will make her better. Hope she is in the Batman Unlimited line and not the DC sub (which i do not have)

    1. actually, didn’t Jason wear jeans? so MrT torso, then suit crotch/upper legs, and combat boot lower legs/feet?

  13. Couple questions for ya, Noisy (or any of my homies, for that matter): Any word at NYCC from Shocker Toys? I don’t know much about them, but about a year or so ago they revealed some 6 inch 50’s era public domain superhero figures (Black Terror, GA Blue Beetle, etc.) that looked pretty decent, and then they promptly fell off the face of the earth. Did they have a booth? Do they exist at all?
    Also, this Batgirl figure Mattel has been showing; is it a straight re-issue of the Batgirl that was just in stores for all of last year, or does it have a new sculpt/color scheme? Just wondering. Thank you in advance for any help on this!

    1. Shocker released the Indie spotlight w1, but if you could find them, they were $15+ and looked like they were cheaper than Happy Meal toys.
      http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dtoys-and-games&field-keywords=indie+spotlight+shocker

      w2 only Snot Clone Tick was “widely” available, and I use that term LOOSELY. It looks like a couple blue Ticks made it to Amazon, but the rest, like Dick Tracy, Black Terror, and the original Dan Garret Blue Beetle (note: Garret with ONE “t” and YELLOW accents over DC’s RED accented Dan GarreTT), never materialized for whatever reason Geoff was spewing on any particular day. There’s a reason he’s blacklisted on most sites, his threatening legal action for the slightest doubt or disagreement probably has something to do with it.

      Batgirl – it does look like the same previous mold for last year’s Batgirl, this time with gold instead of yellow and purple inner cape paint variations? (sorry, quick image search only turns up one pic of this new figure with lots of glare and reflections.)

      1. Thank you, sir, for the information! I had heard grumblings about Shocker not having the best reputation, but having never seen any of their products in person, i didn’t want to jump to any unfair conclusions. Too bad about the Indie Spotlight line, though. The prototypes looked pretty good, and “JLA vs. Project: Superpowers” could have made for a cool shelf display.

        As for Batgirl? Well, I know reusing parts has always been Mattel’s bread-and-butter, but Jesus, the previous Batgirl figure warmed pegs all last year. Now we have to see it all over again this year? Good call, Matty! You never fail to disappoint.

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